(MENAFN- Arab Times) Syrian refugees in Turkey began returning to their homes in Tal Abyad on Wednesday after Kurdish forces seized the border town in a major blow to the Islamic State group. Some 200 men, women and children carrying their meagre possessions crossed back into Syria through the Turkish border post of Akcakale, a day after Kurdish fighters backed by Syrian rebels took Tal Abyad. The fight for the town prompted some 23,000 people to flee into Turkey, but on Wednesday the first returnees said they were eager to get back home. "I'm returning, I left my husband there. But I'm still very afraid of the bombs, how would someone not be afraid of bombs?" said Fahriye, a 40-year-old housewife. "I'm also afraid of IS coming back," she said. "I'll go and decide with my family whether we'll stay or not." Mahmud, a farmer, said he too was eager to return home ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins on Thursday in Syria. "It's not so good here " It's not like home," he told AFP. "We want to spend our holy Ramadan in our homeland. We have been looking forward to it." Fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian rebel forces declared full control over Tal Abyad on Tuesday, less than a week after they began an advance on the jihadist-held town. Analysts said their capture of Tal Abyad, aided by US-led air strikes, was the most significant defeat for IS in Syria so far.
The town was a key conduit for foreign fighters and supplies into IS-held territory in Syria and for exports of black market oil from jihadist-held fields. The loss cuts a key IS supply line to the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital of Raqa. Meanwhile, the United States and its coalition partners staged 11 air strikes in Syria and Iraq on Tuesday targeting Islamic State militants, the Combined Joint Task Force leading the operation said. In Syria four strikes hit three units of militant fighters near the cities of al Hasaka, Aleppo and Kobani, the task force said in a statement released on Wednesday. In Iraq, seven air strikes targeted Islamic State fighters, vehicles, weapons caches and other assets near five cities, including Sinjar and Mosul. Islamic State has killed five policemen in a town near Iraq's biggest refinery, in an attack that may help ease pressure on some of its fighters trapped in the strategically important facility, a security official said on Wednesday.
The official in a regional security command centre said the insurgents mounted the operation at Tal Albu Jarad village as part of a battle for control of Baiji refinery, which has changed hands several times. After receiving reinforcements, Islamic State militants recaptured three neighbourhoods in the town of Baiji near the refinery, but fresh clashes have erupted there, the security official said. One of three British sisters, thought to have headed with their nine children to join Islamic State militants, has made contact with her family in Britain and given an indication the group may be in Syria, British police said on Wednesday.
British Muslims Khadija, Sugra and Zohra Dawood and their children, aged between three and 15, were reported missing six days ago. On Tuesday the husbands of two of the women appealed for their return, fearing they might have gone to Syria. "We have received information that contact has been made with the family in the UK," West Yorkshire police said in a statement. " Contact has been made by one of the missing women and there is an indication that they may have already crossed the border into Syria but this is uncorroborated." The group flew to Saudi Arabia in May for an Islamic pilgrimage, and a Turkish security official said they travelled to Istanbul on June 9. Their families grew concerned when they failed to arrive back in Britain on June 11 as expected and British police contacted their Turkish counterparts for help the next day.
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